On My Own
by Kaylin Tesla
Summary: "We're all we have now, Mick. We survive together, or not at all."


On My Own

Summery- "_We're all we have now, Mick. We survive together, or not at all." _

Rated- Teen with warnings of mentioned child abuse and alcoholism, and it's a bit of a tear-jerker.

Note- Writers block has been particularly cruel to me over the past several months. Hopefully this gets me back in rhythm. I will warn you that I'm not Welsh in the slightest, so the language differences in the story are based on what I've studied from various websites. Also, I don't own anything pertaining to Criminal Minds Suspect Behavior. All I claim are my own independent characters and imagination. Writing Fan-Fiction is great practice and entertainment. No one beta-reads these -although I wouldn't refuse if someone offered- so any grammar and spelling mistakes are my own. Please don't verbally kill me for a typo.

I'm not sure how many chapters this will be exactly. There will definitely be a second, but I don't know if it'll last more than that. It honestly depends on reviews. This is not related in any fashion to my current series I've posted here. I've also posted this on Tumblr. The link to my account is in my profile.

Thanks in advance to anyone who likes, favorites, subscribes, and reviews this. The encouragement is always loved and appreciated. Enjoy!

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Part 1/?

_1988_

"_You killed Mam."_ _Six-year-old Michael Rawson -'Mick' as his mother used to call him in honor of the grandfather he was named after- glowers over the rim of the ancient wooden cradle and hisses the grief-stricken words to his infant sister. His muddy brown eyes narrow, a rage simmering beneath his skin, memories of his mother tainted by her blood-soaked body lifeless in a hospital bed two months ago resurface in crashing waves, and it feels as if his heart is shattering all over again. Small hands wring the carved rungs until his pale trembling fingers begin to protest his brutality. The cradle creaks as he hangs onto the wood, his legs wobbling under the assaulting emotions of despair and anger and abandonment. He presses his face between the wood forcefully, his young features contorting into a sinister sneer unfit for a boy his age, his uncombed dark brunette hair dipping before his eyes, and swallows against the sobs locked in his throat to bite out his next whispered words. "She died because of you. You killed her. You should have died, not her. I will never love you as much as I loved her."_

_He doesn't realize the change in pitch until he hears footsteps in the nursery doorway, but he doesn't necessarily care if his father or older brother catches him harassing baby Jenna again. Sobs begin to break through his persona, his breath hitching in vain attempts to control himself, tears held at bay by the embarrassed hurried swipes of his sea-blue pajama sleeve. He grips the cradle railing harder, tipping towards him as his knees buckle, and gasps over the sobs, "It isn't fair. I loved her more than you ever could."_

_Jenna blinks upwards, her amber eyes sinking into his own through the darkness, and he swears something akin to understanding darts across her soft features. Her lips begin to twitch as her face contracts, her eyes glossing with tears, her pink sleeper-covered-body tilting towards him with the cradle. She reaches for him, her hands tiny and fragile, but Michael sneers in refusal._

"_Why couldn't you just take her place? We were happier without you. Dad didn't drink and Mam was here and we were happy. And then you ruined everything." He jerks the cradle violently with his last statement, ignoring the quickened pace of footsteps rushing towards them, and spits as many hateful words as his young imagination can fathom before he's jolted back by the collar of his shirt. _

"_What is wrong with you, Mick?" Peter -four years older and mentally mature in comparison to most his age, especially after their mother's passing- shakes him by the shirt collar roughly. He drags Michael away from the cradle and to the window, shoving him against the white and pink wallpaper beside the glass with a steadying fist bunching the shoulder of his shirt. "Are you trying to wake him? You know how angry he gets when he drinks. Why would you take such a stupid risk?" He demands answers in a bitter whisper, his slate eyes sizing him up and down and finally settling on his tear-soaked face in the pale moonlight hue. The browns and whites of his summer nightwear stand out in the darkness, the yellowed bruise of their father's last night highlighted on his bare left forearm. _

_Michael focuses on staring up at a loose shoulder string of his tee shirt to avoid eye contact. He wipes at his face with his sleeve for the umpteenth time and scuffs his bare feet on the plush carpet, his fingers palpitating his own fading bruises across his chin. His nose is sore and his eyes bloodshot, the tears sticking to his skin by the seconds, regardless of his sleeve. It's a dead give-away, the tears and eyes and behavior. _

_He doesn't want his father to wake from his liquor-induced slumber, angry and violent and frightening. _

_He doesn't want to be shoved around again until he's bruised by a drunken man he's lost respect for since his mother's funeral. _

_He certainly doesn't want to explain any of these emotions or fears to his older brother. _

_His mother would despise the attitude he's taken after her death, as well as the sudden grief-drinking binge his father has been on since her funeral. He knows she would try to reason with him, knows she would wrap him in her arms and sing him to sleep and everything would be okay. The violence would stop and the bruises would fade and he could sleep again. But she's gone because Jenna killed her. He's not embarrassed or remorseful for his behavior and hatred towards his sister. _

_He thinks, with everything in his soul, that she deserves the attitude for destroying their family. _

_(Even if some fractional part of him believes he should love her because she is his sister now and his mother would want them to carry on with their lives.)_

_Peter reads the situation, just as he always does, and his shoulders sag at the realization. He releases his hold on Michael and saunters to Jenna's cradle, shooting a quick precautionary glare towards the open doorway. "She wouldn't want us to hate each other." He says gently, tip-toeing and stretching over the railing to lift Jenna into his arms. He holds the back of her head and spine with one hand and forearm and secures her against his chest with the opposite, all the while begging her not to release the pent wails edging for release in her quivering face. "She loved all of us equally." _

"_But she killed her." Michael breathes harshly, the words maliciously thick on his tongue. "She took Mam away from us."_

_Peter rolls his eyes in evident frustration and releases a throaty sigh. He eases himself into the corner sand plush rocking chair and crosses his ankles on the footrest, positioning Jenna in the crook of his arms to rock her gently until the tears begin to retreat. "It isn't her fault." He says with agitation to his voice as he nods expectantly to the footrest, silently ordering Michael to sit beside his bare feet so he could keep his voice low. Michael accepts the offer and flops onto the lengthy seat, refusing eye contact even as Peter continues. "You know that it isn't her fault. We've been over this a million times already. I know you can't get that image out of your head and that's okay. No one expects you to forget her or what you saw. And to be honest, you shouldn't have run off to begin with. But this doesn't help anyone."_

_Michael doesn't understand, in regards to their mother's passing and their father's neglect and the absolute emotional rapids they've been thrust into for the past two months, how Peter can be calm. Peter is rational and Michael is passionate. The older gives logical reasons for his actions whereas Michael reacts with his heart first. He doesn't know how Peter can still laugh with his friends at school and lie with a smile to the teachers who see the bruises left by their father's drunken temperament. How can he continue living in their home -taking care of Jenna when their father is too drunk, keeping the house moderately clean so the police don't take them away, ensuring they have relatively decent food three times a day with the help of the local church supplying the pantry- and still be calm about everything? Why hasn't Michael seen him cry since the funeral or lash out at Jenna like he has every other night?_

_Peter may be mature for his age out of necessity to survive, but he's still only ten years old. He should be mourning the loss of their mother with him, not playing house-keeper. _

_Of course, if it hadn't been for Peter's determination to pick up where their mother left off in raising him and keeping the house orderly, they probably would have starved to death by now or the neighbors would have called the police and they would have been separated. _

"_I loved her too, Mick." Peter says after a pensive beat of silence. He softly hushes Jenna's squirming and nudges his brother's side with his foot to gather his attention. "She was my Mam too. It hurts, knowing that she's gone forever, but we can't be like Dad. Jenna's too young to take care of herself. Mam died to bring Jenna into the world. The least we can do is make sure she lives. Otherwise Mam would have died for nothing."_

_It makes logical sense. Their mother fought, and died, to give Jenna life. She wouldn't want their lives to suffer, any of them, because she chose her child over herself. _

_But Michael isn't ready to acknowledge anything rational regarding his mother's death. _

_The nightmares are still too vivid. Every night he's slipping past the adults moments after the doctor explained his mother's death due to 'complications' as Jenna was born, running into her hospital room to find the white linens pulled over her lifeless form as nurses disconnected machines and needles, the blood dripping on the tile floor from the stained edge pooling, his father's stern grip on his arms as he's dragged out of the room, kicking and screaming and sobbing hysterically. He can't recall the last restful night of sleep. It's been days since he's slept in his own bed, and even longer since he's slept without his green and red plush dragon for comfort while curled in his mother's empty bed. _

_He's living in a haze where nothing sounds pleasant and everything and everyone is wrong, and he doesn't know how to pull himself out of the fog. _

_He's too young for such an epiphany._

"_She'll never understand what she took from us." Michael whispers solemnly, his eyes settling on Jenna. _

_Peter stares down at his sister for a long pause, his lips tightening in a fine line as she begins to drift back into a restless slumber. He swallows thickly, as if reassuring himself, and glances up at Michael with an unsure nod. "She doesn't need to know. Mam would want that. She wouldn't want us to hate Jenna, no matter how hard it may be." _

_Peter is correct in every definition, and Michael knows that the wisdom should be taken to heart because it is exactly what his mother would have wanted for them. _

_She was a kind soul, loving and passionate and brilliant. Sometimes -when Michael is tucked beneath her cold bedding with his dragon and his blanket after his father backhands him across the face for his attitude or twists his forearm to shove him out of his stumbling path or threatens him with his belt across his ass if he smarts off again- he can still see her. He can visualize her snuggled next to him, whispering dead reassures and promises of grandeur once his father is finished grieving. Her eyes -a lighter mirror of his own- beg for solace and understanding when she explains why she had to chose Jenna's life over her own. She smells of calming lavender and pungent vanilla from her preferred hand lotions. Her voice is the equivalent of silk, a lullaby among every word._

_The longing to hear her sing to him again, hear her read him to sleep every night and chase the nightmares away, makes his heart burn with sorrow. He can't eat or sleep or smile because her ghost never leaves him alone. _

"_You haven't been sleeping." Peter announces, apprehension shifting across his features. He waits for Michael to acknowledge the obvious with a shrug or nod. _

_No one in the house, except Jenna, has truly slept since their mother's passing. Michael is envious of the baby's excusable naps, because all he's managed in the last two months are half-an-hour-long exhaustion-fueled naps in school and halfway throughout the nights. Peter is wearing himself thin, figuratively and psychically, with only two hours a night cramped in his mother's rocking chair in Jenna's nursery. Their father is often too drunk to pull himself out of the reading recliner in the lounge next to the fireplace -where their mother would sit by a warm fire with a book in hand every faithful evening after supper. _

_Michael doesn't respond because he feels that a verbal acceptance wouldn't be accurate enough. _

_Nothing he says could ever describe just how easy their family falls from grace after their mother died. _

_Peter rises to his feet once more, Jenna cradled in his arms, and wavers unconvincingly before him. Michael glances up to catch his brother's somber eyes trained on his lingering chin bruise and grimaces at the scrutiny. "It'll be okay. Dad can't drink forever and Jenna will grow up before we know it. It's hard now, but it won't last forever." _

_Michael doesn't believe him._

* * *

_Peter lied._

_Matters don't improve. Their father doesn't drop the liquor after eight months of grieving. The abuse -bruises and scrapes from their father's drunken stumbles or punishments- increases until disguising the effects from other adults is impossible. Sleepless nights and traumatizing nightmares are rampant. They've stopped celebrating holidays and birthdays -Peter is eleven as of August tenth, but he doesn't get more than sweets from school friends and birthday cards with single bills from relatives. Food becomes scarce when their father refuses church charity and avoids the actual church. Peter and Michael are struggling through school work. Jenna has been feverish and unruly with her hours-long crying fits several times a week. _

_Michael, as it seems, suffers far worse than Peter and Jenna. His inconsistent appetite has shed pounds off of his thin frame until his skin stretches gauntly over his rib cage and his clothing is visibly baggy. Dark shadows give the allusion of bruised eyes, which he doesn't know how to deflect when questioned by someone else. He doesn't smile and he distances himself from everyone, preferring to lock himself in his mother's bedroom with his belongings after school for hours at a time. Every sass comment to his father leaves him bruised after the punishment, but he welcomes the violence because it's been eight months since it started. _

_It's becoming a routine now, and Michael works best with routines. _

_People begin to notice the routine. _

_Tywyn is a small seaside town with only a few thousand residents, meaning everyone knows everyone else in one capacity or another. Rumors circulate like wildfire throughout the churches. Everyone knows that Catrin Rawson died giving birth to her daughter and Dylan Rawson is an abusive drunk now. He's been fired from his job at the docks because he's smelled like a brewery since the funeral. Money is wasted on liquor and cigarettes, and he's depleted the savings set aside for their future schooling just to keep the electricity running through the house._

_Neighbors and teachers, specifically, read their bruises and haunted expressions and jump to conclusions. They're correct, actually, but Peter and Michael don't know what to do. They're afraid of the consequences because Peter has been adamant about what would happen if someone found undeniable proof of their father's addiction and abuse. He'd heard it from a friend's mother -who worked with the Gwynedd Social Services- at school shortly after their mother died and has been cautious since._

_They don't want to be separated into new families across Northern Wales. Michael may hate Jenna because she survived and his mother didn't, but he is utterly mortified of being left to fend for himself with people he doesn't understand. _

_Everyone knows, but no one has the courage -or unquestionable evidence of abuse- to intervene. _

_Peter had said that this wouldn't last forever. Their father would reach an epiphany and Jenna would grow up and everything would return to normal. But Peter hadn't anticipated, as far as Michael can ascertain, the extent of their father's cowardliness._

_Michael knows, beneath the childish denial and innocent vestiges of hope, that their father's abandonment is expected. The community has already written him out of the situation entirely because the writing was on the walls the moment he began drinking after the funeral. When he refused church assistance and tapped their money dry, when bills began to pile in a trash bin and everything but shelter and electricity and water were taken away in retaliation, everyone knew he was on his last leg. _

_It is still a shock, to say the least, when their father does abandon them on Christmas Eve. _

_Like most boys his age, Michael is excited about Christmas. The amount of gifts left under their tree from 'Santa' and relatives -his grandparents in Swansea and Rhyl, his cousins, uncles and aunts in Cardiff, Bethesda, Corwen and Newtown- has always been substantial. Gifts were bought and wrapped within the first week of December, and then displayed in eager anticipation on the floor next to the lounge windows. His mother would bake holiday pastries for the church and Michael would volunteer in the kitchen as much as he was able, sneaking frosting and chocolate when his mother's back was turned. Peter and their father would decorate the home in flashing festive lights and beautiful garland. They would set the tree in the lounge, away from the fireplace, and fill it with mismatched hand-crafted ornaments and soft hued lights and a shining golden angel at the top. _

_This year they don't decorate the house. Their mother is dead and their father doesn't cook and Peter is unclear of how his mother used to bake so many pastries within three days. The presents sent by relatives are still tucked in shipping boxes in the corner of the hall near the front door where their father left them. The church had offered a freshly cut tree, but their father refused rather rudely. Despite the lack of festive decor, Michael still believes some good will come from the holiday._

_The primary school holds a play every year, 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens, in which children from all ages are allowed to partake if they maintain a steady grade average throughout the year. Peter has played one of the orphaned children since he was seven, and Michael is supposed to play 'Tiny Tim' in tonight's showing. Michael has studied his script -a shortened child-friendly rendition- and attended every weekly rehearsal for two months now. He's eager to see how his dedication to the project plays, and secretly, he would love to see his father and baby sister in the crowd with the rest of the parents. _

_The play is the first thing to drag him out of depression since his mother's passing. Even if his father doesn't attend and they are forced to beg upon Misses Elain Pryce -a charitable, portly, grandmother with ties to the church living next door- to care for Jenna again until they return- he has to admit that the positive attention he's gotten from teachers and parents and fellow students makes him forget his troubles for a few hours. _

_But their father leaves before the sun rises on Christmas Eve morning. _

_Peter wakes Michael at seven. He bursts into their mother's bedroom with a furious shove of the door that crashes the knob into the wall stopper. Michael startles, burrowing under the sheets as fear and instinct strive in his sleepy state, his beloved blanket and dragon tucked under his chin and arms. _

"_Mick! Get up, now!" Peter yanks the blankets down the bed until they hit the floor, and then snatches Michael's shirt shoulder to shake him roughly. It's strange, and frightening, to see Peter enraged in such a manner. He's often quiet and composed and logical, not emotional and vicious like their father. _

"_What? What's wrong? Did I oversleep and miss school?" Michael stammers the slurred words out as he pries Peter's fist out of his shirt, pulling his knobby legs up to wrap with his equally bony arms defensively. He studies Peter for a moment, and finds his heart sinking into his stomach as Peter chokes on sobs and fights back stubborn hopeless tears. _

_Peter isn't supposed to be emotional. He is rational to a fault, even apathetic at times, just like their father. _

_So why is he crying?_

"_He left, Michael." Peter bites through a clenched jaw. Somehow his birth-name sounds wrong, and not simply because Peter rarely ever says it aloud. His teeth grind audibly, his nose scrunched in disgust and rage. Not far beneath, there's desperation and hopelessness that stain his eyes like blood on white linen. He's stripped raw, psychologically, and Michael has never seen anything like it before. "He didn't even pack his things. He just left a note on the coffee table and drove away." He shakes his right fist in Michael's face, a crumple piece of notebook paper poking out between his bruised fingers. Michael shrugs away defensively, his brow knit as is sleep-addled brain tries to comprehend. "Don't you get it? He abandoned us. We're alone now." Peter tosses the note onto the bed between them, his posture shaking in uncharacteristic fury, and then reaches for the nightstand lamp. He chucks it into the opposite wall, careless to Michael's visible shaky flinch at the crash, and screams until his voice cracks into sobs. _

_Abandoned. Alone. _

_Understanding surges through the thicket of sleep. Michael knows, in regards to their life now, what abandonment means. He's heard Peter fuss with the idea enough over the past several months. Without their father, they would be placed with a new family. Either relatives or foster homes, whichever is easiest for the system. They could be separated based on age rather than actual genetics. Michael could, in theory, never see his brother or sister again. They would have to pack their belongings and move to another home with people they didn't know or trust. Those people could be worse than their father. If they were placed with family, they would be moved from Tywyn to somewhere else in Wales which means they wouldn't be able to attend the same school classes. Their friends and neighbors and lives would mean nothing. _

_Betrayal creeps in the pit of his chest again, that same grueling ache festering since his mother's death returning with a vengeance. He wants to be angry like Peter. Every fiber in his soul screams to break things whilst simultaneously crying hot stinging tears of a broken heart. His dragon and blanket don't comfort him in those moments, because every time his eyes linger to them enclosed in his fingers the bitter hopelessness crashes like the waves of the nearby ocean. _

_Their father doesn't love them. He hasn't since their mother died. Michael displays impassiveness to most. It's easy to assume that his father never loved him to begin with, that he only stayed with them because he was madly in love with his mother. Now that his mother is gone, his father didn't have a justifiable reason to stay. It burns, knowing that he had loved his father as much as he adored his mother and the feeling was never truly reciprocated. He feels as if his father blamed him for everything and that is why he abandoned them. Whatever he unknowingly did to cause the abuse and abandonment is a mystery he doubts he will ever solve. _

"_What do we do now?" Michael whispers once Peter's violent outburst subsides, leaving the older brother visibly exhausted and distraught. _

_Peter's shoulders sag in defeat, his gaze downcast to the carpet, and scrubs the tears from his reddened face with bruising force. "I don't know." He replies with a sniffle, keeping his back to Michael defiantly. "They'll know he's gone when we don't show up for school. Someone will track us down and realize that we're alone now." He sounds terrified of the possibilities and nameless people for good reason, but there's an emotional obstinacy and purpose beneath the surface that confuses Michael. _

_Peter has been passive for as long as Michael can remember. He never throws temper tantrums or feeds off of boyish impulses -although there was the tree incident in which he climbed on a dare when he was six and their father had to rescue him because he was too afraid to climb down on his own. They rarely ever argue or fight, and when they do, Peter usually submits rather than dwells on the issue as Michael does. _

_Both boys are polar opposite. Peaceful, negotiable, clever, logical; fierce, emotional, impulsive, stubborn._

_That is why the hatred burning in Peter's expression as he finally turns towards him, the palpable suffocating array of deprecating emotions ripping innocence by the seconds, is indicative to just how undeniably screwed they are._

"_We've already lost Mam and Dad. I won't lose you and Jenna." Peter states with an expressiveness to his unsteady tongue. "Go pack as many clothes into Mam's old travel case as you can fit. I'll take care of Jenna's supplies."_

"_We're leaving?" It is the farthest thing from expected given their father's recent actions. Michael barely mutters the question , knowing now isn't the appropriate time to doubt his brother, and clings his dragon tighter against his chest until his fingers pale. _

_Someone would find them sooner rather than later. Leaving, as their father did, isn't a logical option. The rational solution would be to beg for help from their neighbor, involve the police, and pray that one of their relatives loves them enough to ensure they are not separated in foster homes. But Peter, for the first time in years, is obviously too distraught to think rationally. _

_Abandoning home would only make matters worse, and somehow Peter doesn't see that. _

_Peter jabs a finger at the crushed paper between them and scowls at Michael. "Yes, Mick, we're leaving. He left us to rot here. We have no food or money and we can't maintain alone. So, we're running away just like he did because if we don't, if we can't survive with each other, those people at social services will take you and Jenna away and we'll never see each other again." His face softens as Michael brushes away tears from his own eyes, his jaw working his mouth into a thin worried line. "We're all we have now, Mick. We survive together, or not at all. Do you understand?"_

_Michael nods stiffly and shuffles off of the bed, but in all honesty, he doesn't understand how they can survive when everyone he grows to love eventually abandons them. _


End file.
